This episode concludes the two-part story that reintroduces the Cybermen to us.
It's difficult when I have to give episodes such low ratings on the Whoscale, because I don't feel like I'm giving enough
credit to the ORIGINAL writers of the episodes. I think that the original draft of this episode, penned by Tom MacRae, may have been closer to the fundamentals of a typical Doctor Who episode. However, given Russell T. Davies' pop fangirl approach to a TV series intended to be 100% science fiction, drastic changes no doubt had to be made to MacRae's draft so that the episode would fit Davies' version of Doctor Who, and not Newman's.
This episode jumps in with both feet when it comes to poorly written solutions to plotlines. At the end of "Rise of the Cybermen," we were left hanging with the Doctor and company facing "maximum deletion" (if just "deletion" kills you on the spot, what does "maximum deletion" do?). Speaking of deletion, I should point out that the battle cry of Cybermen is something new, no doubt added so that kids that didn't know a classic series existed could associate a battle cry with the Cybermen in much the same way they were taught in "The Parting of the Ways" to associate "Exterminate!" with the Daleks. Getting back to the poor solutions, the predicament the Doctor is left with at the close of "Rise of the Cybermen" is solved by simply and suddenly making the power module for the TARDIS the Doctor has been toting around (why not leave it in the TARDIS?) double as a weapon that is effective against not just one, but multiple Cybermen - all the Doctor has to do is point the power module at a handful of Cybermen, and ta-da! Moore then rescues them via the "Scooby-Doo van."
Once again, the Davies seems hell-bent on capitalizing off of the "Rose getting to see her parents happy and successful together" theme. There are numerous momentary scenes in which Pete questions why Rose is staying so close to him, unaware that she is his counterpart's daughter. Granted, these make for excellent drama - but the initial plotline and backdrop of this two parter was the reintroduction of the Cybermen, so I fail to see why it was necessary to include the Tyler family AGAIN. Honestly, everytime the Doctor visited Earth, whether it be in another time or another dimension, Davies simply had to have the whole family woven into the plot somehow so that the drama would be heightened to the level of excessively annoying, and the soapy domestic drama would dominate the science fiction flavor of the episode. At this point, it would obvious which audience Davies was aiming the new series at, and it WASN'T the already massive and existent Doctor Who fanbase. No, Davies was aiming Doctor Who chiefly and the female audience; the same female audience that tunes in to shows such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "One Tree Hill." Davies cuts the intellectual, science fictional, and "geeky" elements out of an episode as much as possible so that the female audience, (whom for the majority don't have any interests in science fiction) will be at the front the couch tuning in.
Besides the episode's storyline revolving around Rose rather than having the The Doctor and Rose revolve around the storyline, Davies may have been responsible for the Doctor donning a James Bond tuxedo for a third of "Rise of the Cybermen" and the entire duration of this episode. Naturally, most females find men in tuxes attractive, and females find David Tennant in a tux EXTREMELY attractive, so that element was probably inserted merely to be eye candy for Davies' loyal followers. Again, the stability and flavor of traditional Doctor Who suffer the most, since the fundamentals of what makes an episode of Doctor Who great are tossed aside in this case just so the majority of the viewers will be NOT science fiction fans, but Tennant worshippers and soap fans.
Perhaps one of the most excessive things about the new Cybermen was the outlandishly loud stomping and swishing sounds as they marched down streets and alleys. Additionally, all of the Cybermen always were shown standing/marching with their fists balled up; I suppose the loud stomping sounds and balled up fists were there to make the Cybermen appear to be more of a menacing foe. Truthfully, great Cybermen stories don't need all of that to entertain us - "Revenge of the Cybermen" was terrific in my opinion, and depicted them as being much more clever and cunning than simple-minded and menacing, like the Cybus versions. Just a sign of the times - if you observe the scenes of the Cybermen's legs marching, you notice that their armor on their legs resembles that of modern-day pant styles known as "boot cut." That's not really an issue for me - the "Revenge of the Cybermen" versions actually had semi-bell bottoms.
The most annoyingly redundant thing I hated about this episode was that action overture that seemed to repeat itself for the ten minutes the Doctor, Rose and Pete were trying to escape from the burning factory. Murray Gold no doubt is a talented musical artist, but the blunt use of orchestrated music to accompany 90% of the episode isn't in the remotest way close to a classic episode. Classic Who was notoriously known for it's fully synthesized electronic music, something that help define what kind of entertainment it was. Orchestrated music puts Doctor Who more into the league of Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker than it does the Doctor Who league.
One other tidbit that was starting to get annoying was the never-failing scene of a some nameless news anchor frantically urging viewers to stay in their homes, as the camera view quickly changes to a close up of the news anchor's eyes on the TV screen, then to a full-face clip, then to a close up of his mouth, then another full face clip. Meanwhile, the camera itself shakes violently in true reality-TV format. Those types of scenes are there for one purpose and one purpose only: to boost the sense of urgency about the situation, because Davies' format of Doctor Who is incapable of casually explaining how urgent the situation is on it's own.
Finally, the farewell scene between Rose and Mickey had me borderline ready to say "Screw it, I've seen enough." How anyone can consider Rose their favorite companion is beyond me - she's whiny, irresponsible, selfish, unfaithful, and is the biggest crybaby I've ever seen. An episode seldom goes by where Rose doesn't shed atleast one tear. Ever since series one, she's been pushing Mickey further and further away because of her feelings for the Doctor, and not that reality slaps her in the face, and Mickey's fed up, she struggles to ask through a shower of tears, "what if I need you?" Answer: TOO BAD. Served her right for treating Mickey the way she had. Mickey is like any other guy who's been hurt; and like them, he isn't going to be a "fall-back" for Rose when she makes a pit-stop on modern-day Earth.
After the stretched out farewell scene, with more tears than there is water in the Thames, we get a epilogue scene between Jake and Mickey, who set out for Paris to eliminate other Cyber-factories.
My apologies to Tom MacRae, who I feel had a brilliant episode in mind when he submitted his first draft to Davies. A shame that a Doctor Who story with such potential had to be turned into this. In my opinion, the excessive RTD rewrites utterly killed the Doctor Who feel of this episode.
It's difficult when I have to give episodes such low ratings on the Whoscale, because I don't feel like I'm giving enough
credit to the ORIGINAL writers of the episodes. I think that the original draft of this episode, penned by Tom MacRae, may have been closer to the fundamentals of a typical Doctor Who episode. However, given Russell T. Davies' pop fangirl approach to a TV series intended to be 100% science fiction, drastic changes no doubt had to be made to MacRae's draft so that the episode would fit Davies' version of Doctor Who, and not Newman's.This episode jumps in with both feet when it comes to poorly written solutions to plotlines. At the end of "Rise of the Cybermen," we were left hanging with the Doctor and company facing "maximum deletion" (if just "deletion" kills you on the spot, what does "maximum deletion" do?). Speaking of deletion, I should point out that the battle cry of Cybermen is something new, no doubt added so that kids that didn't know a classic series existed could associate a battle cry with the Cybermen in much the same way they were taught in "The Parting of the Ways" to associate "Exterminate!" with the Daleks. Getting back to the poor solutions, the predicament the Doctor is left with at the close of "Rise of the Cybermen" is solved by simply and suddenly making the power module for the TARDIS the Doctor has been toting around (why not leave it in the TARDIS?) double as a weapon that is effective against not just one, but multiple Cybermen - all the Doctor has to do is point the power module at a handful of Cybermen, and ta-da! Moore then rescues them via the "Scooby-Doo van."
Once again, the Davies seems hell-bent on capitalizing off of the "Rose getting to see her parents happy and successful together" theme. There are numerous momentary scenes in which Pete questions why Rose is staying so close to him, unaware that she is his counterpart's daughter. Granted, these make for excellent drama - but the initial plotline and backdrop of this two parter was the reintroduction of the Cybermen, so I fail to see why it was necessary to include the Tyler family AGAIN. Honestly, everytime the Doctor visited Earth, whether it be in another time or another dimension, Davies simply had to have the whole family woven into the plot somehow so that the drama would be heightened to the level of excessively annoying, and the soapy domestic drama would dominate the science fiction flavor of the episode. At this point, it would obvious which audience Davies was aiming the new series at, and it WASN'T the already massive and existent Doctor Who fanbase. No, Davies was aiming Doctor Who chiefly and the female audience; the same female audience that tunes in to shows such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "One Tree Hill." Davies cuts the intellectual, science fictional, and "geeky" elements out of an episode as much as possible so that the female audience, (whom for the majority don't have any interests in science fiction) will be at the front the couch tuning in.
Besides the episode's storyline revolving around Rose rather than having the The Doctor and Rose revolve around the storyline, Davies may have been responsible for the Doctor donning a James Bond tuxedo for a third of "Rise of the Cybermen" and the entire duration of this episode. Naturally, most females find men in tuxes attractive, and females find David Tennant in a tux EXTREMELY attractive, so that element was probably inserted merely to be eye candy for Davies' loyal followers. Again, the stability and flavor of traditional Doctor Who suffer the most, since the fundamentals of what makes an episode of Doctor Who great are tossed aside in this case just so the majority of the viewers will be NOT science fiction fans, but Tennant worshippers and soap fans.
Perhaps one of the most excessive things about the new Cybermen was the outlandishly loud stomping and swishing sounds as they marched down streets and alleys. Additionally, all of the Cybermen always were shown standing/marching with their fists balled up; I suppose the loud stomping sounds and balled up fists were there to make the Cybermen appear to be more of a menacing foe. Truthfully, great Cybermen stories don't need all of that to entertain us - "Revenge of the Cybermen" was terrific in my opinion, and depicted them as being much more clever and cunning than simple-minded and menacing, like the Cybus versions. Just a sign of the times - if you observe the scenes of the Cybermen's legs marching, you notice that their armor on their legs resembles that of modern-day pant styles known as "boot cut." That's not really an issue for me - the "Revenge of the Cybermen" versions actually had semi-bell bottoms.
The most annoyingly redundant thing I hated about this episode was that action overture that seemed to repeat itself for the ten minutes the Doctor, Rose and Pete were trying to escape from the burning factory. Murray Gold no doubt is a talented musical artist, but the blunt use of orchestrated music to accompany 90% of the episode isn't in the remotest way close to a classic episode. Classic Who was notoriously known for it's fully synthesized electronic music, something that help define what kind of entertainment it was. Orchestrated music puts Doctor Who more into the league of Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker than it does the Doctor Who league.
One other tidbit that was starting to get annoying was the never-failing scene of a some nameless news anchor frantically urging viewers to stay in their homes, as the camera view quickly changes to a close up of the news anchor's eyes on the TV screen, then to a full-face clip, then to a close up of his mouth, then another full face clip. Meanwhile, the camera itself shakes violently in true reality-TV format. Those types of scenes are there for one purpose and one purpose only: to boost the sense of urgency about the situation, because Davies' format of Doctor Who is incapable of casually explaining how urgent the situation is on it's own.
Finally, the farewell scene between Rose and Mickey had me borderline ready to say "Screw it, I've seen enough." How anyone can consider Rose their favorite companion is beyond me - she's whiny, irresponsible, selfish, unfaithful, and is the biggest crybaby I've ever seen. An episode seldom goes by where Rose doesn't shed atleast one tear. Ever since series one, she's been pushing Mickey further and further away because of her feelings for the Doctor, and not that reality slaps her in the face, and Mickey's fed up, she struggles to ask through a shower of tears, "what if I need you?" Answer: TOO BAD. Served her right for treating Mickey the way she had. Mickey is like any other guy who's been hurt; and like them, he isn't going to be a "fall-back" for Rose when she makes a pit-stop on modern-day Earth.
After the stretched out farewell scene, with more tears than there is water in the Thames, we get a epilogue scene between Jake and Mickey, who set out for Paris to eliminate other Cyber-factories.
My apologies to Tom MacRae, who I feel had a brilliant episode in mind when he submitted his first draft to Davies. A shame that a Doctor Who story with such potential had to be turned into this. In my opinion, the excessive RTD rewrites utterly killed the Doctor Who feel of this episode.
As a woman and a lifelong sci-fi fan, your review made me giggle. I just got done watching these two episodes again and I love them for everything you hate them for. I'm not putting you down, it's just that I disagree. But no worries. The current Who must be a pleasure to you for the same reasons that I hate it so we're in perfect balance. Isn't it fun?
ReplyDeleteYes, I don't think anyone can deny that Series 5's format has been nothing short of a complete departure from what Davies had been doing, but Moffat's episodes during the RTD era usually reflected the original series the most, and Series 5 so far has been nothing but homages to the classic, which as you say is good for me. Bear in mind, to voice my dislikes about these episodes in my review is not to say that I don't like them; they were still good episodes and Doctor Who nonetheless, I merely explain in these reviews which elements didn't fit the criteria of classic Doctor Who format.
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